T-Mobile reportedly planning to shut down most of its LTE network by 2028

As LTE enters its second decade of service — and 5G now dominates as the default mobile standard across much of the U.S. — it’s no surprise that major carriers are preparing for the inevitable retirement of 4G networks. While Verizon and AT&T are expected to follow soon, T-Mobile appears to be leading the charge, with plans to begin phasing out LTE in less than two years.

According to a leaked internal document published by The Mobile Report, T-Mobile is preparing to reclaim most of the spectrum currently used for LTE and repurpose it for standalone 5G operations over the next two-plus years. Although the company hasn’t publicly confirmed exact details, this timeline points to 2028 as the targeted sunset date — after which only a single 5 MHz LTE channel will remain active, primarily to support legacy devices.

T-Mobile warns that this transition may cause compatibility issues for LTE-only devices as well as early 5G non-standalone (NSA) hardware, particularly wearables and older equipment that still rely on 4G for basic connectivity.

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Key Dates and Milestones

• January 1, 2026: According to the leaked document, any LTE or 5G NSA activation after this date will require a formal exemption request and approval from T-Mobile’s network IOU team. The document is aimed primarily at enterprise customers, and it remains unclear how — or when — similar restrictions might affect regular consumer accounts. However, since T-Mobile is pushing its business clients to activate 5G standalone services starting early next year, consumer-level limitations could follow.

• Through 2035: The company intends to keep one final LTE channel operational until 2035, albeit with limited and degraded performance. This means LTE connectivity will technically remain available for the next decade or so, but much like 2G and 3G networks before their retirement, the experience will become increasingly unreliable and constrained.

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Most devices released in recent years already support standalone 5G, including voice over new 5G channels. However, early 5G smartphones — especially those launched around 2019–2020 — still depend on LTE for voice calls. While there’s no immediate urgency to upgrade, users with older 5G phones should consider replacing them within the next 24 months to avoid compatibility issues as T-Mobile accelerates its network transition.

Once T-Mobile begins publicly communicating the LTE shutdown timeline to its mainstream customers, we can expect a clearer roadmap for the phase-out schedule and a more detailed list of affected devices.

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If the 3G shutdown taught the industry anything, it’s that migrating users away from legacy networks is far slower and more complicated than most anticipate. It wouldn’t be surprising if T-Mobile’s current targets shift — potentially stretching beyond 2028 — as the company balances infrastructure upgrades with the need to support millions of legacy devices still in use.